Shadowfires. By: Dean R. Koontz

by something he thought he glimpsed wiffiinr beyond-the dancing flames.

Now, as dawn insistently pressed upon the resistant darkness of the

mountains, Eric Leben ascended from stasis, groaned softly for a while,

then louder, and finally woke. He sat up on the edge of the bed. His

mouth was stale, he tasted ashes. His head was filled with pain. He

touched his broken pate. It was no worse, his skull was not coming

apart.

The meager glow of morning entered by two windows, and a small lamp was

on-not sufficient illumination to dispel all the shadows in the bedroom,

but enough to hurt his extremely sensitive eyes. Watery and hot, his

eyes had been less able to adapt to brightness since he had risen from

the cold steel gurney in the morgue, as if darkness were his natural

habitat now, as if he did not belong in a world subject either to sun or

to man-made light.

For a couple of minutes he concentrated on his breathing, for his rate

of respiration was irregular, now too slow and deep, now too fast and

shallow.

Taking a stethoscope from the nightstand, he listened to his heart as

well. It was beating fast enough to assure that he would not soon slip

back into a state of suspended animation, though it was unsettlingly

arrhythmic.

In addition to the stethoscope, he had brought other instruments with

which to monitor his progress. A sphygmomanometer for measuring his

blood pressure.

An ophthalmoscope which, in conjunction with a mirror, he could use to

study the condition of his retinas and the pupil response. He had a

notebook, too, in which he had intended to record his observations of

himself, for he was aware-sometimes only dimly aware but always

aware-that he was the first man to die and come back from beyond, that

he was making history, and that such a journal would be invaluable once

he had fully recovered.

Remember the mice, the mice.

He shook his head irritably, as if that sudden baffling thought were a

bothersome gnat buzzing around his face.

Remember the mice, the mice, He had not the slightest idea what it

meant, yet it was an annoyingly repetitive and peculiarly urgent thought

that had assailed him frequently last night. He vaguely suspected that

he did, in fact, know the meaning of the mice and that he was

suppressing the knowledge because it frightened him. However, when he

tried to focus on the subiect and force an understanding, he had no

success but became increasingly frustrated, agitated, and confused.

Returning the stethoscope to the nightstand, he did not pick up the

sphygmomanometer because he did not have the patience or the dexterity

required to roll up his shirt sleeve, bind the pressure cuff around his

arm, operate the bulb-type pump, and simultaneously hold the gauge so he

could read it. He had tried last night, and his clumsiness had finally

driven him into a rage. He did not pick up the ophthalmoscope, either,

for to examine his own eyes he would have to go into the bathroom and

use the mirror. He could not bear to see himself as he now appeared,

gray-faced, muddy-eyed, with a slackness in his facial muscles that made

him look…

half dead.

The pages of his small notebook were mostly blank, and now he did not

attempt to add further observations to his recovery journal. For one

thing, he had found that he was not capable of the intense and prolonged

concentration required to write either intelligibly or legibly.

Besides, the sight of his sloppily scrawled handwriting, which

previously had been precise and neat, was yet another thing that had the

power to excite a vicious rage in him.

Remember the mice, the mice bashing themselves against the walls of

their cages, chasing their tails, the mice, the mice…

Putting both hands to his head as if to physically suppress that

unwanted and mysterious thought, Eric Leben lurched out of bed, onto his

feet. He needed to piss, and he was hungry. Those were two good signs,

two indications that he was alive, at least more alive than dead, and he

took heart from those simple biological needs.

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